Chris Bryant
Main Page: Chris Bryant (Labour - Rhondda and Ogmore)Department Debates - View all Chris Bryant's debates with the Cabinet Office
(12 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Field
I have always underscored those points, but hon. Members who put them to me also need to look at the evidence. What did the House of Lords Committee say about the contribution overall that immigrants make to our economy? It is minuscule. Of course immigrants earn their way and make a contribution, but to think that we are pounds in is mistaken. If hon. Members want to dispute the figures, they will catch your eye, Mr Speaker. I am saying that unlimited migration on the scale that we have seen is not such an economic advantage to this country as some of the proponents of open doors would wish us to believe.
I wish to pose another question to the new Immigration Minister: if he accepts those projections, what measures will he take that make a target limit of 70 million people possible? My third question is about the sources of the growth in immigration. If one looks at the net figures, one finds three major sources: people who have work permits; people who, under the conditions, bring their families here; and students. We know that the work permits that the Government make available are not all taken up, so it is not as if work permits are a main driver of the stubborn level of net migration. On people who bring their immediate family over, the figures show that families do not account for a net migration figure each year of in excess of 200,000.
On students, my question is whether the attempt to meet the Government’s target will mean looking critically and resolutely at the size of the student population that probably stays. We have only one piece of information about students returning home. It was a Home Office survey, which showed that after five years one could account for 20% of students who came here under certain conditions who were still here legitimately to work. We simply do not know what happened to the other 80%.
Chris Bryant
I am afraid that my right hon. Friend is completely wrong in his analysis of those statistics. Even more importantly, his motion refers to population. According to every piece of work that has been done, the vast majority of students go home. Their whole point is to study here and go home, and then hopefully become ambassadors for doing business with Britain in their home country.
Mr Field
Of course, but it will be noticeable to people watching this debate that I gave way and the point was not answered. There were some generalities on all this information. There is one survey, which the Home Office undertook, that showed that after five years we could account for 20% of students who passed through our universities. They were still in this country and had every right to be here: we do not know whether the others went home or not.
Chris Bryant
The 2010 Home Office study “The Migrant Journey”—I think that is the one to which my right hon. Friend refers—showed that 21% of individuals who entered as students in 2004 remained in the UK, which is exactly the opposite of what he is saying. In actual fact, some of them were staying on to study because their courses lasted for more than five years and some of them had changed to a different migration route. The only evidence of people staying illegally in that study was 3%, not the 80% that my right hon. Friend mentions.
Mr Field
I would be grateful if Front Benchers would listen. What I said was that the one survey that we have shows that after that period of time we could account for 20% of the students who come to our universities. They were still in this country—they had every right to be here—and they were pursuing studies or, more likely, working. We do not know from that Home Office study what happened to the other 80%.
Mr Turner
Yes, that is the word and that is what it means. If someone chooses to go home, we may help them, and if possible that should be determined by our own Government, not the Europeans.
We are working through the system, but it appears to be a case of taking two steps forward and one step back, and it is one of the few areas where I would welcome more progress.
Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)
What a pleasure it is to follow the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr Godsiff), who made a remarkable speech.
I, too, want to focus on numbers, as the motion does. It is a strange thing that from the early part of the 19th century until past the middle of the last century it was almost universally accepted that overcrowding and over-population was a major driver of poverty. Indeed, in one scheme alone, between 1922 and 1935, more than 400,000 people received Government assistance to emigrate, principally to Canada and Australia. The Office for National Statistics estimated in 2004 that we would have 67 million people by 2031. Six years later, that figure had gone up to 72 million, or 5 million more. Yet there is widespread concern among reputable statistical agencies—I mention the Bank of England as just one that has gone public—that the ONS has lost count. Indeed, if we look at the detailed way in which it calculates the figures—in particular, its assumptions about birth rates, which make no adjustment at all for a changing composition—we find good grounds for thinking that its projections might not be accurate. All are on the same side of the equation—that is, in every case there are grounds for thinking that the ONS’s projections are too low, rather than too high.
There is a further issue, which people are very reluctant to address. I hope nobody is going to accuse me of being a racist—if they do, I am not going to dignify the comment with an answer—but we have to look at the detail and accept two facts. The first is that the phrase “net migration” is misleading. To take the age profile of the people coming in and those going out, it is perfectly absurd in demographic terms to equate pensioners retiring to the sun with young people coming in who have not yet started families.
The second point is that many of those coming in are from areas that have historically had much higher birth rates than the indigenous group. The trend in every country in the world is that birth rates among incoming communities tend to trend towards the national average of the country that they are joining, with one important exception: if those groups do not become absorbed into the wider body. Over the last few years, we have for the first time begun to see the very unsettling picture, to which the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) referred, of some groups not assimilating.
Over the last few weeks, we have rightly felt enormous national pride at the performance of our Olympics team. Nobody needs me to say that the racial mixture—the original ethnic origins—of the people who won all those medals for Britain, and in many cases of those who did very well but did not get medals, covers the full spectrum of people here. What was much less widely discussed, however—and what has started to come out only recently—was a whole string of violent acts by people living round the area against service personnel. Those acts were not only against personnel responsible for guarding the area, but in one case against naval personnel from a visiting ship, to such an extent that I understand that instructions were given out towards the end not to be seen, if possible, in uniform too far from the site.
I mention that not because I would dream for one second of denying the colossal contribution that so many immigrants have made to this country, nor because I am a racist—I am incredibly proud of the fact that my grandfather was a member of the Indian army, the largest volunteer force ever raised in the history of this country and drawn from every conceivable religious background and an awful lot of different racial backgrounds in India—but because we must recognise the important warnings that the right hon. Gentleman gave. We are now starting to attract some groups that do not feel British.
Let me spend the last couple of minutes on a few more statistics that should worry us all. We all believe that every family needs a decent home. I know of no other country, except possibly Japan, where average house prices are seven times earnings despite the recession. House prices here are certainly much higher than in America or Germany, two other prosperous countries where the figures are 4.5 and 4. In London, there is not a single borough left in which one can rent a two-bedroom dwelling for less than 35% of the median earnings, and there are a relatively small number left where the figure is less than a half. We have housing shortages on a scale that is completely unprecedented in the modern era. We have heard a lot of references to infrastructure as well.
I want to end with students. I am proud of the fact that I represent the area with the largest concentration of students in the country, with four universities wholly or partly in my constituency. I am immensely proud of what we do, taking in foreign students, who bring money to this country and provide us with good will. However, the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who speaks for the Opposition, was quite wrong in his intervention on his right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead. I have a copy of that study, “The Migrant Journey”, with the note from the Library confirming that it was a purely paper exercise. Although the study shows that 21% had a reason to stay in the country, together with thousands of dependants, nothing is known about where the other 79% went.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I, like all Members who have spoken in this debate, congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) and the right hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames) on introducing this debate. I fully agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr Godsiff) that it is right that Parliament should talk about and address one of the issues that is of primary concern to a great number of our constituents. A lot of them take such issues seriously, whether they be migrants themselves, whether their families have been in this country for 1,500 years, or whether they be second or third generation migrants. I have never believed that, just because somebody is concerned about immigration, that, somehow or other, makes them racist. Of course, some such people are racist, but the vast majority are not. They are not bigots; they have a serious set of concerns that we need to address, so I congratulate my right hon. Friend and the right hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. I have to say, however, that I think that the right hon. Gentleman wanted to have his cake and eat it, if he does not mind me saying so.
Chris Bryant
The right hon. Gentleman is smiling. I did not mean that to be a foodist comment. He argued in favour of cuts to immigration, but then said that he wants an easier system for distinguished people to come into the country. He said that he wants to get rid of the hub and spoke system, but I would suggest that that would significantly increase the costs of running this country’s migration system, and that he wants to give the officials far more discretion. There is real danger in going down that route. We have to have a system that is manifestly fair and robust and that delivers the same outcome, whatever personal connections somebody may have.
As several Members have said, there are three problems with the motion. First, it links immigration policy to population, and population only. Secondly, it uses the phrase “all necessary steps”, which is a very dangerous set of words. Thirdly, there is a danger that if we agree to the motion we would effectively be cutting off our noses to spite our faces, because of the potential unintended consequences for the future with regard to our economy and our society, let alone to the specifics of our education.
Keith Vaz
I object to my hon. Friend’s comment. I know that he does not have eyes in his head, but I certainly have been present during the debate. [Interruption.] I meant to say that my hon. Friend does not have eyes in the back of his head. Prior to this debate, I was chairing the Home Affairs Committee and my hon. Friend will be pleased to know that, in her evidence, the Home Secretary was very clear that she does not believe in an arbitrary cap on the population of this country either.
Chris Bryant
Good. I am glad that my right hon. Friend confirmed that I have eyes in my head, if not in the back of it. Usually, I can sense his presence in the Chamber, but could not on this occasion, so I apologise.
I will make a few introductory remarks. First, it is vital that we have a robust, firm, workable and controlled immigration system that is fair to resident British nationals and to migrants who seek to come here.
Secondly, as many hon. Members have said, sometimes perhaps slightly patronisingly, immigrants have contributed enormously to the United Kingdom. I am sure that we would all agree with that. Few of the people living in my constituency of the Rhondda were not born there. I think that the percentage is the lowest of any constituency in the country. However, 100 years ago, there would not have been the economic growth that there was in the valleys of south Wales without migration from Ireland, England, Scotland and, most notably, Italy. When there was significant unemployment in Italy, many Italians came to work in the south Wales valleys, which is why a café is known as a brachi in south Wales.
Thirdly, British emigrants have contributed phenomenally around the world. One has only to go to Buenos Aires and see that it has more pipe bands than Glasgow to see the positive role that British people have played elsewhere. It would be hypocritical to adopt an attitude that we do not expect British people to face when they travel abroad as emigrants.
Chris Bryant
I will give way, but I am hesitant as this is a Bach-Bench debate and I do not want to take a vast amount of time.
Mr Brazier
The motion is about numbers. Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that there is a vast difference between people moving from Europe, a largely overcrowded continent, to the emptiest countries in the world, such as Australia, Canada and large parts of south America, and the problems that we face as almost the most congested corner of Europe?
Chris Bryant
It does not feel very congested in the Rhondda, I have to say. Sometimes this debate is conditioned strongly by the problems in the south-east of England. It is also a problem for our economy that we are far more dependent on one area—London and the south-east of England—than many countries in Europe. The more that we can to do shrink the country and extend financial opportunities around the country, the better.
I disagree with the hon. Gentleman’s analysis of Latin America. The biggest and fastest-growing cities in the world are all in Latin America and many parts of it face vast congestion. I just think that he is wrong on those facts.
The vast majority of British people value the presence in British universities of international students. We all see that as a positive for the British economy, because if people study in this country and then go back to their country, they are—we hope—more likely to have a positive experience of this country and to do business with us in the future. That is without mentioning the amount of money that having international students pumps into the British economy.
In addition, the vast majority of people in this country want to protect our reputation for welcoming refugees from oppression, torture, violence and oppressive regimes around the world. Although free movement within the European Union undoubtedly has its problems—that is felt not just in the United Kingdom, but notably at the moment in Spain—it is vital to the free market on which the British economy depends.
Linking immigration to population is not as straightforward as many hon. Members have suggested this afternoon. Those who come to this country often leave. If we changed the number of people coming into the country in some categories, we would lose the bounce effect from the people who leave after a few years.
Chris Bryant
The hon. Lady really has not been here for the whole debate, but I will give way to her.
Nicola Blackwood
The hon. Gentleman is very kind. I speak as the daughter of a migrant, but he is free to patronise my contribution at any moment he chooses. Does he agree that a significant problem with regard to numbers, which as far as I am aware has not been raised, is that it is incredibly difficult to have an informed debate about immigration when the data collection on those who are in the country and those who exit the country is not complete? We need to fix that problem if we are to form a proper evidence-based policy on immigration.
Chris Bryant
The hon. Lady makes a very fair point, which is related to the next point that I was going to make. Several hon. Members have referred to the number of students, and 60% of non-EU migrants to this country are students. My contention is that the vast majority of those students return to their country of origin. Their whole aim is to come here, study and take their skills back to their own country. The evidence is not cast-iron on any side of that argument, but let those who say that the vast majority of students stay here prove it. I simply do not believe that to be the case.
I return to the figure of 70 million mentioned in the motion. Several hon. Members have been profoundly misled about the figures, because if net migration were zero in every category for the next 25 years, the population would grow to 66 million by 2035, up 6% from what it was in 2010. If net migration were tens of thousands, which as a couple of Members have mentioned is the Government’s declared aim, the population would be 70 million just after 2035. I do not think the measures that are currently being taken will achieve that declared aim, so they would have to be redoubled, if not trebled, for us to achieve what the motion proposes.
In addition, intra-company transfers under tier 2 were at 29,000 in 2010, roughly the same number in 2011 and 29,571 in 2012, but none of them entitles somebody to settlement in this country, so tackling them would not affect the final figures to which the motion refers.
I also object to the phrase “all necessary steps”. Even if the Government were to achieve their declared aim, the population would reach 70 million just after 2035. I suppose that if we were taking all necessary steps, we could theoretically tear up all our asylum commitments. The number of them has fallen in recent years to 19,804, but they are long-standing commitments. Would we really want to tell people fleeing Mugabe or a vicious regime elsewhere in the world that they could not come to this country, and that we would no longer respect those commitments?
We could cut the cap on tier 2 migration below 21,700, but it is already undersubscribed. Only half the certificates of sponsorship were taken up in the last year. If we cut intra-company transfers by installing a cap, I believe that we would dramatically harm the UK’s opportunity to act as an international hub.
We could encourage more people to leave the country and make them emigrate by increasing the threshold for settlement to more than £35,000, but that would touch only some 3,000 people at best. We could curtail non-EU migration, but not without cutting demand. According to many employers, the danger is that they would simply seek to employ more EU migrants. The key point is that we have to deal with demand for migrant labour in the UK. For instance, we need to deal with pay and conditions in many parts of the country, so that it makes sense for British people to work. We need to ensure that people have the skills to be able to take the jobs in key industries such as construction and hospitality that are currently being taken by migrants. We also have to tackle the vectors of mass migration around the world, particularly war, famine, poverty and climate change. On that basis, I do not think it would be right to support the motion.